ENVIRONMENT

Definition:
Environment can be defined as a sum total of all the living and non-living elements and their
effects that influence human life. While all living or biotic elements are animals, plants, forests,
fisheries, and birds, non-living or abiotic elements include water, land, sunlight, rocks, and air.

Environment functions:

(1) Provides the supply of resources

 The environment offers resources for production.
 It includes both renewable and non-renewable resources.
 Examples: Wood for furniture, soil, land, etc.

(2) Sustains life

 The environment includes the sun, soil, water, and air, which are essential for human
life.
 It sustains life by providing genetic and biodiversity.

(3) Assimilates waste

 Production and consumption activities generate waste.
 This occurs mostly in the form of garbage.
 The environment helps in getting rid of the garbage.

(4) Enhances the quality of life

 The environment enhances the quality of life.
 Human beings enjoy the beauty of nature that includes rivers, mountains, deserts,
etc.
 These add to the quality of life.

Types of Environments
The environment differs from one perspective to another. Let’s take a look at the following
ways to group or classify environments.

 Internal and external

In physiology, the environment may be internal or external. An internal environment
would be the internal milieu of a multicellular organism. Maintaining the internal
environment of an organism through homeostasis is crucial to the organism’s survival.
An external environment refers to the environment outside of the organism. The next
sections focus on the external environment.
 Natural and Built
Environments may be natural or built. A natural environment is a type of
environment found in nature. It includes all naturally occurring things, both living
and nonliving. It, therefore, involves the complex relationships of weather, climate,
living species, and natural resources.
Built environments, unlike natural environments, are made by humans, such as
agricultural conversions or urban settings. With the current breadth of human
interventions and conversions, many natural environments have acquired some
degree or level of being “built”.
It is clear that man is a part of the environment; however, the intervention of a man
produces a built environment. Humans have developed advanced tools to change
components of the environment to meet their needs. Some animal species are also
capable of using tools such as raw material to build nests, mounds, dams, and
dwellings. However, their tools are relatively primitive and often the impact is not as
extensive as that of human tools and technology. Human technology became widely
distributed all over the world affecting all aspects of the environment either directly
or indirectly.
 Aquatic, terrestrial, and atmospheric
Based on the components, the environment may also be classified into (1) aquatic
environment (marine, such as oceans and seas, and freshwaters, such as lakes and
rivers), (2) terrestrial environment (land), and (3) atmospheric environment (air).
Marine environments are the largest known environments, they are characterized by
the presence of water with great salt content. On the other hand, freshwater
environments have less salt content. Marine environments represent about 97% of the
water on Earth. Organisms within marine environments communicate with each other
and with their physical surrounding. These environments are of great importance to
humans because it is an important source of nutrition and resources. Marine pollution,
acidification, and warming are threats to the marine environment as a result of human
activities.

Natural environment: a type of environment where organisms dwell or interact with

the surrounding nature.
Terrestrial environments are environments found on land only. It represents the land of
islands and continents and organisms living on them. Unlike aquatic or marine
environments, terrestrial environments are not abundant in water; therefore, the
presence of water in terrestrial environments is important. Due to the relatively lower
availability of water, the temperature of terrestrial environments fluctuates daily and
seasonally. There are six terrestrial ecosystems: taiga, rainforests, temperate forests,
tundra, deserts, and grassland.
The atmospheric environment refers to the atmospheric component of an environment.
The atmosphere (air) is a part of the Earth that has a huge impact on the thriving and
survival of many organisms. Solar radiation, air components, climate, and air pollution
are just some of the physicochemical attributes that can define an environment.
Living organisms have adapted to living in a particular environment with its specific
conditions, such as humidity, temperature, light, and so on. All these factors affect the
species in the environment. Therefore, living organisms have to adapt and modify
through time to survive and tolerate different environmental conditions. Nevertheless,
the environment itself also ‘evolves’. For example, oxygen eventually became
incorporated into the Earth’s atmosphere after being released by photosynthetic
organisms (such as algae) when producing sugar as food. Oxygen, eventually, became
indispensable to the thriving of aerobic organisms, such as animals, including humans.

External Environment Components

The external environment includes all biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) things. They
are as follows:
 Air, land, water
The Earth’s crust is the solid surface of the Earth and is also referred to as the
lithosphere. The lithosphere is part of the environment. One natural source of the
lithosphere is the solidification of magma.
Water (hydrosphere) is one of the main constituents of the environment. It covers
about 71% of the Earth’s surface. It is found in oceans, rivers, seas, and lakes.
Oceans cover a great area of the Earth’s surface. They contain saline water in a
continuous ocean body and small seas.
Unlike oceans and seas, rivers contain freshwater and they flow toward a sea, a lake,
an ocean, or another river. Few rivers flow toward the ground without reaching
another water body and dry up. Rivers flow in a channel. They complete the water
cycle since the river water is collected from glaciers, recharge of groundwater, and
springs. Small rivers are known as streams. They are important in the environment
because they connect different habitats and maintain biodiversity.

A lake is a body of water in part of the land and not connected to an ocean, the lake
is deeper and larger than a pond. Natural lakes are usually present in areas with
recent glacier formations or mountain areas. Ponds are small bodies of standing
water, they are either naturally formed or man-made, they are smaller than lakes.
Man-made ponds include fish ponds and solar ponds.
Water in built environments is affected by humans in various ways such as
deforestation, urbanization, building dams, and channels to modify rivers as well as
streams. Dams are designed to keep water to keep water and change its direction.
Even though dams are useful in generating electricity and creating water reservoirs,
they have a negative impact on natural environments by stopping the movement of
fish and organisms through rivers and streams. Moreover, they affect the water
supplying the forests. This eventually leads to the deterioration of trees and a
decrease in the food supply for different biotic factors in the environment.
The atmosphere is the main factor in maintaining the balance of an ecosystem. The
atmosphere is composed of a thin layer of gases that covers the Earth. The
atmosphere is maintained in its position by the gravitational force. The atmosphere
is composed of different gases such as nitrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, argon, and
inert gases. Moreover, the atmosphere includes water vapor and ice crystals forming
clouds. One of the atmosphere layers is the ozone which reduces the intensity of
ultraviolet rays reaching the Earth’s surface. Ultraviolet radiation damages the DNA
of living organisms. Thus, the atmosphere as a component of the environment is
important for the survival of living organisms including humans, and for maintaining
the environmental balance by preventing temperature extremes.
Global warming is one of the major challenges affecting our environment nowadays.
It refers to the recent increase in the Earth’s average atmospheric temperature due
to an increase in the levels of greenhouse gas (e.g., carbon dioxide, methane, ozone,
and fluorocarbon). These gases keep the heat within the atmosphere. The rise in
their levels in the atmosphere is caused by human activities such as deforestation,
carbon dioxide combustion, etc. Because of that, the Earth’s surface temperature
became warmer, thus, the name. Global warming is said to increase the average
temperature of the Earth’s surface that is enough to cause climatic change.
Accordingly, the global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F)
during the last century.
The climate is the state of wind, humidity, rain, atmospheric pressure, and
temperature in a given area over a long period of time. It is classified in relation to
different variables such as precipitation and temperature. Conversely, weather
represents the condition of these elements but in the short term only. Both are
important components of the environment. Weather is the sum of all phenomena
taking place at a given time in a given area. Generally, the weather describes daily
temperature values, while the climate describes the average condition of the
atmosphere over a long time.
Weather describes differences between places in their moisture and temperature.
These differences are due to several factors such as the sun angle on a given area.
Surface pressure differs due to differences in temperature from one region to
another. Humans developed systems that can predict the future state of the
atmosphere, moreover, they tried to control the weather by different methods.
There is evidence that activities of humans such as industry and agriculture have
modified the weather since it is affected by any small change in the atmosphere.
 Biosphere
The biotic components represent all living things on Earth, such as bacteria, protists,
algae, fungi, plants, and animals. Life existed on Earth for more than 3.7 billion years.
It is generally characterized by metabolism, growth, organization, adaptation,
response, and reproduction. It includes all living organisms in the environment. The
part of the Earth where living organisms occupy is referred to as the biosphere.
Different living organisms are found within the biosphere. Living organisms have
distinct features and traits that make them adapt to specific environments.
Biomes are ecological communities of different organisms that are able to adapt to
the environmental conditions and climate in a certain geographic area; therefore,
biomes are large environments characterized by biotic and abiotic factors such as
light, temperature, precipitation, and other factors. Biomes are classified into 6
regions, which may either be land or aquatic. Land biomes are grassland, forest,
tundra, and desert whereas aquatic biomes are freshwater and marine biomes.
Biomes are useful in ecological studies and ecosystem changes as they provide
information about the environments and how they change, adapt, evolve, and
function.
Ecological Role
The ecosystem is the external environment wherein all organisms function together
along with all non-living things in the environment. Living organisms within the
ecosystem form complex relationships with abiotic factors in their environment to
support their development and survival.
Energy flow
Energy flows between biotic and abiotic parts of the environment in cycles within
the system of the ecosystem. Consequently, all components of the ecosystem are
integrated with each other in harmony. In the chart below, notice how energy flows
in an ecosystem. The energy from the sun (light energy) flows through the various
trophic levels (from producers to consumers and decomposers) as it is converted
into chemical energy that drives various metabolic activities and ultimately
dissipated, e.g. as heat, into the environment.